The cork handlebars really are nice. I still haven't experienced them in a post-rain state. I suppose I could always wet them myself.

I started the process of getting a driver's license again, from scratch because I was stupid (put things off) and unlucky (late taxi) in renewing before my old license expired. I passed the written test -- 1 question wrong (up to 6 okay), 2 signs wrong (up to 2 okay), total of 3 wrong. I heard people ahead of me being told they had 16 or 19 wrong, out of 34 questions and 16 signs. Now I just have to figure out how to take the driving exam. But a lot of the questions ranged from trivia (who really remembers whether the speed limit on a rural divided highway is 60 or 65 mph?) to common sensical, where three answers were just obviously wrong (tip: don't drive off after an accident, or speed through stop signs). Possibly trickier were ones with three positive answers and one "all of the above" but in that case "all of the above" is almost always correct. Fortunately I'd brushed up on my numerical trivia, except for the rural highway limit.

I've been to a couple of music recitals. Early music trumps classical. Well, Cima and Telemann trumped Shostakovich and Stravinsky.

The power supply whine really is intolerable for more than brief periods, and I'm waffling on replacing the supply or the computer. So most of my online activity is in the computer lab, which leads to a different experience at home. Just me and the books, no ready opportunities to flick via the Internet. On the down side I can't watch my anime, unless the dialogue drowns out the whine.

The cast iron is working better. countrycousin's suggestion of letting the bacon heat up in the pan helped, and today I did some basic sauteeing of onions, garlic and beef as prep for meat sauce. Which I almost never do; I either don't bother, or try to sautee them in the pot before adding the tomatoes.

My mother sent me a William Pfaff column "The Triumph of Venus", about the success of the EU in pacifiying and now democratizing Europe, and possibly in helping the fall of the Warsaw Pact, as the close-to-home discrediting of the Soviet model. "Mars" is the American model, where we haven't actually won a war since 1950. The article doesn't seem to be freely online, though. I do have 50 reasons to love the EU.

The Witling was good to re-read, after all these years. Vinge's roots in "make one change and work it out" hard SF, and no Singularity whatsoever.